Comments

Just played by myself for a couple of minutes and had a blast!I'll try to think of some cool things to add when I get chance. I loved the casting mechanic, it's looks awesome, and it adds some depth as you have to remember what combo gives what.

I casted 2 spells that I don't know the combo of but managed to cast quite regularly. The one spawns a wall the other a minion of sorts. What are the combos for those and how many spells can you cast atm?

All in all good job so far I really see it being a fun game to play vs a friend.Also seems like a game that streamers/Youtubers for example can play for fun, as I've seen CSGO/Dota streamers play games like Lethal League against each other between matches and people loving it.I believe because it is simple enough on the surface but deep enough to offer a good competitive showing.

So those spells you casted are the wall: Down, Left, Up, Right, Down and the summon: Up, Down, Up, Down, UpIt's funny that you found these by accident. They're experimental. There are nine spells in the game at the moment but most of them are experimental. If you go up to the spell book in the house, you can find out how to cast water!

Thanks a lot for your insights, they've made me realise that maybe this game ought to be a fighting game so I'm going to tailor it more towards combat!

Had a try, has a lot of potential :) Yes, would be cool to play 4 players on the same screen. Reminded me of a real time version of chaos, the old ZX spectrum game, mixed with Mortal Kombat finishing moves :)Its a pity the game needs 8 keys, would be fun to play on the same keyboard with another friend, but maybe controllers would fix that :P But i also see the need for 8 keys.

You can actually play on the same keyboard with a friend! The keys are strange since I needed to give each player enough space, but you totally can. I will add controller support soon too and then there can be 4 players at the same time :) Also this game might work on the Nintendo switch that was just released, so I'm going to get controller support working as soon as possible.

Fighting with another person is where the game is the funnest, which is why I focused on that more than the singleplayer. The singleplayer experience is something I would really like to have, but I've been struggling with finding a fun sort of gameplay that uses spells and doesn't get tiring.

I'm really glad you liked the storytelling and the altar! I'd like to add more of these sorts of things to the singleplayer game if people enjoy it.

I don't have to keep the 8bit sounds. If you and others think those sounds are a weak point, I'll reinforce the game with better sounds.

I really enjoyed your game.The overall idea is very interesting and i like the idea of fighting each other with magic.I played a bit of the story mode and it was fun.The spells were really easy to learn and I only managed to get fire and water but they performed really well.It is also very easy to know where to go next and the game does have a bit of exploration.I like the spells they were really fun to cast and the animation was good.I am not a big fan of this animation but I actually like this one.The graphics were also very good and the text was very clear even though the game is not in full screen.The dialogue was also very good and quite funny sometimes.Some improvements I would recommend is to expand on the story as it is good but it needs more work and even though you are not focused on single player add more to it because people like me sometimes enjoy a single player game every now and then.The mechanics could also do with some work as I battled to get through the fires in the cave.I would also like to see a variation of the spells as the fire and water spell looked very similar.Overall the game was really good and I would play it again sometime.

Question:Are you going to add extra things such as health, mana or weapons or is it going to be the same mechanic through the whole game?

@Plenopterix Nice to see you are continuing work on this. I've been having fun with it. Is there a way to restart story mode? I couldn't seem to find the option in the menu?

Edit: There is a way you 'could' get around having 8 keys. By having 5 instead (WASD+Space perhaps). The 5th key could be a toggle/held down that moves your spell instead of the character? I don't know how that kind of control system would feel though... because it's cool to be able to walk/dodge and move your spell around :)

The art style didn't immediately appeal to me. If I'd just seen a few thumbnails of the game, I probably wouldn't have clicked through to see more. This is pretty subjective and it seems like it's something you're aiming to address.

I really like the super-fast transitions between indoor and outdoor scenes. I've never liked the friction in lengthly transitions like the Pokemon & Elder Scrolls games, so this was a breath of fresh air. Made me more willing to pop in and explore parts of each town.

I had quite a harsh experience on my first play. I arrived at the first temple and randomly guessed option 2 as the spell sequence... which was correct. But at that point I hadn't paid attention and couldn't remember the sequence. I tried to talk to the trainers again but nobody repeated the formula. So I was pretty stuck. After trying a bunch of stuff randomly I gave up. It would be a real shame if that was my only experience with the game, maybe characters repeat the correct formula once you've answered correctly?

On my second try a day later, I was plesantly surprised to see that story mode had save my progress and I started right at the temple. This time I paid way more attention to the fire spell.

Initially I tried to fire spells by using the WASD movement keys, took me a while to try the arrows keys.

Quite a delightful moment to cast one's first spell. Also cool when I realised I could fire them off in a direction.

I did the fire & water dojos & cave and they all felt pretty good. There's a nice mix of learning and testing in those. Some parts took a few tries from me but I always felt like mistakes were my fault and there was almost no friction to try again.

At points the movement feels "struttery" / "stuck". I think that's because I can't move and use spell keys at the same time. I guess that's intentional? I wonder if there's a way to make it feel less sticky ... maybe tweening the player to a stop instead of suddenly?

Hit boxes sometimes feel a bit off. In the dojos there were a few times the spell didn't visibly touch a wall but still collided anyway. In the fire mountain quest I was clearly walking on non-burning bush but I still caught fire anyway. This got quite frustrating.

I feel like this game could be quite rewarding as one invests more time with it. Building up an arsenal of spells and exploring the world intrigue me and I'm tempted to play a bit more.

The little characters in the world / along paths add quite a bit of charm and made me want to keep exploring. Felt like there's often a little treat around the corner.

You asked specifically about viability in the current market, here's what I think:

The visual style isn't magnetic enough. One thing I noticed while playing & rating Ludum Dare games recently is that one's first moments with a game are often just a thumbnail. Usually a thumbnail next to a bunch of other game thumbnails (on Steam / itch / mobile stores). I don't think SW has enough draw in a single thumbnail yet.

I checked out the Steam page. It's great that there's a trailer. Unfortunately, for me, it didn't convey the core fun elements of SW (namely exploring and spell casting). It mentioned those elements with text but the visuals didn't convey them to me.

The trailer also looks like it's aimed at mobile (because of the UI elements on screen during spell casting) and I sense that might be a serious put-off for the Steam audience.

Based on my 25 mins of single player experience, I'm not excited enough yet to reach out to friends and poke them to buy this so we can play multiplayer.

I hope this doesn't come across as too critical and is helpful for you. It's clear that you've put a bunch of love and effort into SW.